BT and Nokia ink 5G research deal to develop standards and kit

BT and Nokia have buddied up on developing 5G mobile technology which they say will speed up networks to allow effective live-streaming of VR, and offer low enough latency for simultaneous live mobile gaming or to power driverless cars.

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The two firms agreed on Thursday to undertake joint proof-of-concept trials to develop technology and equipment standards, as well as examining potential customer use cases.

BT and Nokia said they hope to establish improved Internet speeds, targeting "multiple gigabits" and "latency in the range of one millisecond"—even at peak times.

It is hoped that the tech will help to provide high network speeds to prop up the long-promised, yet still faddish Internet of Things (IoT); by "flexing" bandwidth based on specific customer needs, the firms ambitiously plan to be able to support "connected cars, smart cities, and remote health monitoring applications."

Work on developing mmWave radio and convergence tech is expected during the trials, which the companies described as "enablers for 5G."

BT tech chief Howard Watson warned, however, that "it’s still early days for 5G," underscoring that the research deal with Nokia was very much about creating a test bed for the technology at this stage.

Nokia's UK and Ireland boss Cormac Whelan said:

5G is the communications technology of the future, and it will transform how we communicate with each other, as well as communicate with devices and ‘things.’ Nokia is delighted to be working with BT in laying the foundations for 5G adoption in the coming years, and in helping define how this technology will enable exciting and innovative experiences.

At BT's Adastral Park facility in Suffolk, the telecoms giant and Nokia have already been carrying out trials on 5G-ready radio equipment. We're told that this system "demonstrates key 5G technology ingredients that are currently in standardisation running on Nokia’s AirScale radio access, including an entirely new 5G frame structure and 4 x 100MHz carrier aggregation."

5G, meanwhile, is becoming a politically hot potato. A delegation of nearly 20 big name telcos, including BT, recently lobbied the European Union with the promise that they'd shoulder the expense of developing 5G with a significant caveat: the formal weakening of so-called net neutrality.